Edited by Sahana Inuganti
The Google classroom page with its four assignments, two exams and one essay stares at me.
If I could go back to the classroom with its reflecting benches where we began would I change this ending?
This assignment, exam, and essay is not what I want to work on. I don’t remember anything that I learned this week.
I prepare my own assignment. I try to remember everything that I’ve said and he listened to this year.
The deadline is October 2, Sunday, 11:59 PM.
The word limit is 750 words.
Your essay must have a title.
The Deadline for Heartbreak
I am not punctual. But, I managed to complete all my assignments just so I could respond to your message disguised as an excuse. That’s what you always made. Excuses. That’s what I did yesterday. ‘Kindly excuse my late submission’, I had said to my Professor.
I am an analyst. So, I was sure of my findings when I performed the laboratory experiments, just like I was sure of my answers when you were curious about my poetry. That’s what you always were. Curious. That’s what I became yesterday. ‘Is this how I solve the question?’, I had asked my friend.
Ever since that Sunday, I have spent countless nights awake solving questions for my assignments. I have skipped so many meals, running late for classes. I have spent every evening listening to physics lectures online. I have written more emails and lab reports than ever. I have laughed with my friends to chase the academic stress away for at least an hour. I have talked to my family just so I would feel that I still have my life under control. I have lost track of time. But, I haven’t opened the Pandora’s box that you left that Sunday. If I do, will I survive the illusion that I am still in control?
This is the conundrum I ask you to solve. Tell me, how do I find time to create a different playlist filled with songs where you’re a hallucination to me and not the person on the other end of the phone with your voice more real than my own? Tell me, how do I find time to feel the hurt you left when I have assignment deadlines today, tomorrow and the day after? Tell me, how do I dig out this pain that you planted as it keeps burrowing inside because I still haven’t processed our final conversation?
But, If you text me asking for the meaning of conundrum. I think I will tell you.
Or should I not, considering how you made me believe it was all my cursed imagination and that you’re the saint praying in the Himalayas who asked, ‘What is the meaning of sin?’
(And to all the people reading this and now worried for the person who this writing is about: Don’t. He doesn’t read my writings. That was a red flag in the middle of the road.)
Is this even heartbreak? If I knew everything was going to break the minute I began writing about you? Did I like you or did I like the words I wrote about you?
I am tired. I have been tired. I think I was tired the moment this began. Right now, I am in the middle of a lecture. I have been yawning just like you did when I talked to you that Sunday. You could’ve pretended to care. You could’ve pretended to know. That has always been easy for you. Playing pretend. Pretending that I misunderstand even when you know I understood you better than your mirror. Instead, you said, “It’s in your imagination. I never gave any signs. I don’t understand. I think this is a misunderstanding on your part.”
This is the conundrum I ask myself to solve. How do I find time to go through this when you say there is nothing to go through and it’s all in my head? How do I find time to remember anything, when you said there were no signs marking the road that we took? How do I find time to lead myself away like you lead me on? How do I find time for me to let you go as easily as you let me go?
I have opened the Pandora’s box that you left that Sunday. I will survive the illusion that I am still in control.
But, if you still text me asking for the meaning of conundrum. I think I will tell you.